Another explosion occurs in Niger. Rice mill, tanker, other properties destroyed

A rice mill, fuel tanker and other properties have been destroyed in a gas explosion that rocked F&S Investment, a gas station in Niger State.

The station is in Sabon Wuse, along the Abuja-Kaduna expressway in Tafa Local Government Area of Niger State.

This makes it the fourth explosion — as documented here — in less than a month in Niger State alone.

The inferno occurred around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, causing residents to scamper for safety. No casualty has been reported as of the time of this report.

How it happened

The incident happened when a gas-laden tanker was offloading at the gas station, residents told PREMIUM TIMES.

“The tanker was offloading when some parts of it caught fire,” a resident, David Sakoma, told PREMIUM TIMES by phone. “The fire engulfed the entire gas station and touched some other properties including Ngil Rice Mill.”

There were no casualties recorded in the incident, Mr Sakoma noted.

Another resident, Dorcas Andrew, corroborated Mr Sakoma, adding many people stayed back to watch the fire razing.

“We were all running helter-skelter,” Ms Andrew said.

“As you can see, this inferno happened to us around 10:30 pm. See as gas keeps exploding,” a male voice filming the incident narrated in a short video shared by a Facebook user, Kabir Bako.

The incident happened near a petrol station, although the fire spared the petrol station, the person who spoke in the video shared by Mr Bako, said.

This came three weeks after a twin tanker explosion killed more than 90 people and injured about 56 others in Dikko, Gurara LGA of Niger State.

Those killed in the incident were given mass burial at the primary healthcare centre where some surviving victims were evacuated before they were moved to another hospital in Abuja.

Last week, Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, visited Minna, the capital of Niger State, where she earmarked some funds for the families of those killed in the Dikko incident.

The scene of this latest incident is several meters from Dikko, where multimillion-naira properties were also lost to the tanker explosion.